Update: There are now 6 completed pictures...

...for Phra Jan. They are stunningly beautiful in the same style as the one below of Mew.
I've been really busy growing Capsicum chinense (Habaneros, Dorset Nagas, and Bhut Jolokias) while waiting for Aek to finish the rest of the illustrations. I'm hoping to be at the printers by the end of the year. Cheers.

Happy Birthday Aung San Suu Kyi; June 19, 2010

Illustrations and Illustrators; Part 2

Mew at the Firefly Cave

For my second book, Phra Jan, I needed an artist skilled in traditional Thai art. The story is set far in the past in Kanchanaburi; a mountainous province bordering Burma. Serendipity played a big part in my finding such an artist. The well known Thai artists are very expensive even by western standards, so I needed somebody who hasn't been "discovered".
While I was teaching at a Thai high school I went to the art department and my wife checked at her school as well. Some of the kids were very good but not quite what I wanted. I asked at every chance everybody I knew, but no luck. I had even considered printing my book sans illustrations.
About 6 months ago I accompanied my wife into Bangkok for her annual physical at Siriraj Hospital and an ex-student of hers who worked there led us through the maze of departments. We took her to lunch and in the course of the conversation my wife told her I write books and gave her a copy of my first one. I told her I wanted to publish my second book but couldn't find an artist.
"My boyfriend is an artist",  said Koi.
Koi e-mailed me some examples of his work; it knocked my socks off, so to speak.
Longer story short, her boyfriend is indeed an artist and exactly what I was looking for. He works professionally painting murals in Buddhist Temples. I printed out a copy of the story, Koi read it and translated it to her boyfriend Aek. Koi said she absolutely loved the story and couldn't put it down, which of course put a big smile on my face.  He's done 8 sketches and I now have one completed picture and it's gorgeous, as you can see, above.
Unfortunately he is very slow and I'm going to see if things can be sped up a bit, because at the rate he's going, it'll be years before he's finished. I hate to push a true artist so I'll have to be very diplomatic, LOL.

Illustrations and Illustrators; Part 1

I'm having illustrations done for my second book, Phra Jan.
Vetting an illustrator is one very critical step in self publishing one's book. I've been very fortunate in finding two illustrators for my books. Why two? Because my two books are different enough from each other that they require two different styles of art.
The first book is a tongue-in-cheek story about elephants walking backwards. It's in the genre of a fable.  The animals talk and are anthropomorphized which I determined would require life like animal drawings but with human like expressions. The drawings of the trees, mountains, and flora are all genuine to Kanchanaburi, Thailand; which is the location of the story.
There are many ways of finding an illustrator; google came up with 2.6 million results in 0.23 seconds. One can go to a local college, university or art school and find a student interested in extra cash. They'll also have a portfolio so you can see their actual work. In my case, I occasionally teach private English lessons and I discovered one of my clients (business English) loved art. I asked her if she was interested in illustrating my book. She said yes. Now, here I'm going to go on a tangent (not a rant); I feel it's very important for my illustrator to read my book. My feeling is, that in order to get the best of the artists abilities, they must know and understand the story. I want the relationship to be more of a collaboration; I want input. The next step is to settle on a fee. This can be googled also and the fees vary widely depending on many variables; experience, reputation, and availability to name a few. In my case we settled on a set price per illustration with no royalties on subsequent printings.
My first illustrator's English was good enough to do this (read the book) and after reading my book, she did a rough pencil sketch of a scene in chapter one. After some minor changes I gave her the go ahead for the first color plate. Athicha did a total of 8 illustrations and the cover. We followed the same formula; pencil sketch, approval/revise, and finished plate. It worked very well and we are both happy with the results.
My second book requires a very different style. I'll follow up with that on my next thread.
  
 

Howard Zinn Dies

This is truly a huge loss for America and the world. Historian, activist, and author; Howard Zinn is the person who woke me up to the real history of the U.S. and thus, the world. Thanks to him I'll never be fooled again.
RIP Howard; you'll be missed; you were truly one of a kind. Thanks.

Printing a Book in Thailand

I received an inquiry today about getting a book printed here in Thailand. I had investigated printing in Bangkok but found the cost to be significantly higher than outside of the city. An added benefit was a free bar code label included in the printing costs.
ISBN numbers here are free as well and are gotten by e-mailing the the Thai National Library and filling out the application they e-mail back. E-mail the completed form back to them and you should receive a number within hours if you do it in the morning. Their only requirement is that you give them 2 copies of your book after it's printed. It goes in their library and is listed as a new book in print.
A copy right from the U.S. is $35 USD via e-mail.
There are many businesses that advertise copy right, ISBN, and bar code services for insanely large amounts of money. Such as $150 USD and up, for one book! I guess laziness has it's price.
The whole point of this blog is to inform those out there about the process of true self publishing; not to support the ridiculous vanity publishing houses who wrongly claim they assist an author to self publish; which it isn't! Further; they're getting a lot of money for their "service" which means they over charge you for the very things you can do for your self.
Self publishing is what I did, which is everything, except the printing and illustrations.
My total cost for 560 books; A5, 80 pages, 8 full page color illustrations, fully illustrated cover (which is shown a number of posts back), the illustrator, ISBN, bar code and copy right, was $1,100 USD.
That comes to just under $2.00 per book. If I had printed 1,000 or 1,500 the price would have dropped by about 25%.
True self publishing is a lot of work and some of the most rewarding fun and enjoyment I've ever had.
Please feel free to e-mail me or post comments or questions here and I'll get back to you asap.

P.S. I'll have my second book out sometime this year and it's going to have some stunningly beautiful illustrations done by an up and coming Thai artist named Aek. He is young and formally trained in traditional Thai art. I've seen his work and it's beautiful.